Field

Research Interests

Jan Reiff received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1981. She worked at the Newberry Library, Northwestern University, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Bremen before joining the UCLA faculty in 1992.

Prof. Reiff has published Structuring the Past: The Use of Computers in History (1992), edited, with Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Dirk Hoerder, Henry Dobyns, and John Long, The Settling of North America: The Atlas of the Great Migrations into North America from the Ice Age to the Present (1995), with James R. Grossman and Ann Durkin Keating, the prize-winning The Encyclopedia of Chicago (2004), and, most recently, Chicago Business and Industry: FROM FUR TRADE TO E-COMMERCE (2013). The online version of the Encyclopedia of Chicago was launched in 2005 as joint project of the Chicago Historical Society, the Newberry Library, and Northwestern University. She has also published numerous articles on a variety of different topics. Currently, Prof. Reiff is finishing a manuscript tentatively entitled "Manufacturing Communities: Pullman Workers and Their Towns, 1880-1981."

Prof. Reiff teaches a variety of courses at UCLA. The coordinator of the "Los Angeles" Freshman Cluster, she was also a member of the teaching staff for the "Sixties" GE cluster and has taught American social history, U.S. since 1960, the U.S. survey, and various undergraduate seminars about cities, including a neighborhood based course on L. A.'s Historic Filipinotown, and a seminar in digital history/digital humanities. Among the graduate seminars she has offered are Comparative Urbanisms, Popular Culture, U.S. Urban History, U.S. Since 1930, U.S. Social History, and Hypermedia and History. She has also taught at the University of Bremen and the University of Utrecht.

Reiff has served as Chair of UCLA's Graduate Council (2007-2009), its Committee on Teaching (2011-2012), and is currently (2012-2013) Vice Chair/Chair-Elect of the UCLA Academic Senate.

Selected Publications

Books

Janice L. Reiff, ed., Chicago Business and Industry: FROM FUR TRADE TO E-COMMERCE (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)

Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Janice L. Reiff, John Long, Dirk Hoerder, Henry Dobyns, The Setting of North America: The Atlas of the Great Migrations into North America from the Ice Age to the Present (New York: MacMillan, 1995)

Janice L. Reiff, Structuring the Past: The Use of Computers in History (Washington, DC: American Historical Association, 1991)

"New York, Los Angeles and Chicago as Depicted in Hit Movies," with David Halle, Eric Vanstrom, and Ted Nitschke, in David Halle and Andrew Beveridge, eds., New York and Los Angeles: the Uncertain Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)

"Introduction to Special Issue on Transnational Urbanisms in the Americas,” Urban History 36:2 (August 2009) (with Philip J. Ethington, co-editor of special issue)

"Through the Fun House Mirror: The Fulbright Teaching Experience in Germany,” in D'Haen, Theo, Paul Giles, Djelal Kadir, and Lois Parkinson Zamora (Eds.), How Far is America From Here? Selected Proceedings of the First World Congress of the International American Studies Association 22-24 May 2003 (Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2005)

"Career Making at Pullman: Employment Stability and Job Mobility for Railroad Repair Shop Workers, 1915-1970," in Origins of the Modern Career, David Mitch, John Brown, and Marco H. D. van Leeuwen, eds. (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate: 2004) with Susan E. Hirsch

Alongside our existing 12 sub-fields, the History Department supports a number of cross-field clusters. The clusters are intended to attract students and faculty to important themes and current in the historical discipline. The clusters will offer new courses, sponsor outside speakers, and convene Department-based workshops and seminars.